What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2018 (Season 11)

[Opry99er]

Wow, I've never seen one of those before.

 

Lovely!

[Opry99er]

Real console, Wico Red Ball.

 

 

Part of me wants to go for the 5.57, but I think I'm done for a while. That's another hour of Dragster for this upcoming week.

[Atarian7]

good score opry

 

Whenever I have a good run going I blow up the engine at the finish line every time.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Real console, Wico Red Ball.

Part of me wants to go for the 5.57, but I think I'm done for a while. That's another hour of Dragster for this upcoming week.

That is absolutely @!#?@ing amazing that you managed to get below 6 seconds with a Wico balltop stick! Wico sticks have just about the longest throw of any quality joystick, so I have no idea how you pulled it off but major congratulations!

[Opry99er]

Thanks Jin and Atarian!

 

 

@Jin: I put the stick between my index and middle finger, then rested my palm on the base. By doing so, I shortened the distance required to actuate the switch. Because the Red Ball has a base button AND a stick button, I was able to switch to the base button and use my left thumb for that, thereby completely eliminating the ball portion of the joy altogether.

 

 

@Atarian7: when you are in 4th gear and you hear the high pitched whining sound (meaning you've pegged the tachometer), drop out of the accelerator and engage the clutch.... coast all the way to the finish line.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Opry99er

[+thegoldenband]

Will post times tomorrow -- work obligations have me wrapped up for just a bit longer.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 20, running from May 14 - 20. We logged 4802 minutes of eligible play, playing 71 games on a total of 12 systems.

Top 10:

1. Dragster (Atari 2600) - 390

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 352

3. Zak McCracken & the Alien Mindbenders (FM Towns) - 327

4. Seawolf (Atari 2600) - 299

5. Shaq-Fu (Genesis) - 289

6. Mine Storm (Vectrex) - 255

7. Enduro (Atari 2600) - 240

8. Paperboy (Genesis) - 230

9. Campaign '84 (ColecoVision) - 167

10. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 160

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Dragster (Atari 2600) - 390

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 352

3. Seawolf (Atari 2600) - 299

4. Mine Storm (Vectrex) - 255

5. Enduro (Atari 2600) - 240

6. Campaign '84 (ColecoVision) - 167

7. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 160

8. Megamania (Atari 2600) - 156

9. Berzerk (Atari 2600) - 150

10. War Games (ColecoVision) - 143

Top 10 systems:

1. Atari 2600 (2290)

2. ColecoVision (705)

3. Genesis (624)

4. FM Towns (327)

5. Vectrex (275)

6. TI-99/4A (126)

7. C64 (125)

8. Atari 8-bit (110)

9. Atari 7800 (64)

10. PlayStation (62)

10. SNES (62)

Ah, Dragster. After years in obscurity, suddenly you've become one of the most talked-about games in the world, thanks to a matter of a few hundredths of a second. But it's a much larger unit of time that made you this week's #1, leading the vanguard in another banner week for the Atari.

[carlsson]

5 of 10 games on the top list are for the Atari 2600, but neither was published by Atari. However Paperboy is an Atari (Tengen) game, though here played on the Genesis. Even when we dig into the pre-NES list, only Berzerk fits the bill of being an Atari game played on an Atari system. Most of the other games obviously are Activision titles due to Opry99er:s patch hunt.

[Opry99er]

An interesting week for the reasons Carlsson stated. Also interesting in that this is the second week in a row that the mothership has a 3-1 or better advantage over all the other systems.

[Opry99er]

Weekday times (M-F)

 

 

VCS:

 

Asteroids (30 minutes)

Dragster (80 minutes) ***Patch earned

E.T. (20 minutes)

Kaboom! (120 minutes)

Spider-Man (20 minutes)

Stampede (180 minutes) ***Patch earned

Survival Run (45 minutes)

 

 

NES:

 

Blades of Steel (30 minutes)

Kung Fu (20 minutes)

R.B.I. Baseball (60 minutes)

R.B.I. Baseball 3 (45 minutes)

Top Gun (30 minutes)

 

 

TI-99/4A:

 

Break Free (30 minutes)

Henhouse (45 minutes)

Tunnels of Doom (30 minutes)

[Atarian7]

So , in your 120 minutes of Kaboom! , what was your high score?

[Opry99er]

2,820

 

 

[Opry99er]

I've done better before, but never snapped a photo. Just need to get my groove back. I always miss some stupid bomb in a big cluster when the bomber does his jitter shake at the edge of the screen. I wish he would just make big sweeping tracks all the time.

[Atarian7]

This past week I had a game that I only scored about 1000 points on. I think I must have been trying to play in my sleep or something. LOL

[Opry99er]

Last night I had a couple hum-dingers. Lost a bucket at 80 points.

 

I got it back at 1,000 though, but then lost all 3 in succession at between 1,800-1,900

[carlsson]

BBC Micro:

The Way of the Exploding Fist - 4 min.

Microbee 32:

Kilopede - 3 min.

VIC-20:

Arachnoid - 25 min.

Ironically, I spent the weekend at Sweden's largest retro gaming expo but since I manned a vendor table I had close to zero opportunities to play either of the long line of consoles and computers (of which I had submitted a fair amount of them, to be honest) or all the arcade games or pinball games (which anyway would be ineligible in this thread). Also I didn't have any time for Atari 8-bit HSC this week so it mostly was about play testing those systems I spent more than 30 seconds on to make sure they booted correctly.

[Opry99er]

Are arcades ineligible? Maybe I read your post wrong.

[carlsson]

No, but pinball games are. And of course arcade games made in 2000 or later.

[Eltigro]

Going to go ahead and post some times... I usually do them later on Sunday evening, but got some things planned later, so here goes...

First off, a lot of these times are approximated. I've been messing with PSP firmware and downloading games and such... most of the time, I just played a game for a few minutes to see if the emulation was working okay. An interesting note, the emulator I played the GameBoy and GameBoy Color games on is a combined GB/GBC/Sega Master System emulator. Just seemed a strange combination...

Atari 2600

Moon Patrol - 20 min (Played this while fixing my computer. I had the Windows 10 update bug that wiped out my desktop and a lot of functionality. Had to essentially reload Windows. Anyway, it's Moon Patrol. Was messing around and trying to see how fast I could go through the stages. Lots of deaths that could have been avoided at a slower speed, but fun as always. This time was split with most of it being on a real 2600 with cartridge, and some via PSP emulation.)

Jr. Pac-Man - 5 min (Played this just for a sec. I suck at this game, but was also trying to play it with a d-pad and that's never a good idea.)

Donkey Kong (psp emulated) - 5 min (I never used to have so much trouble with the ladders on this game. I really think it might be the controls. A joystick is better for the climbing, but the d-pad seems to be better for going back and forth on flat ground. What's a guy to do?)

Keystone Kapers (psp emulated) - 10 min (This is actually one of my favorite 2600 games. I was disappointed that it wasn't on the Flashback portable, but it's an Activision game, so it makes sense. I usually skip the elevators because I hate waiting on them, but this time I tried them more often. It helped out some times, but some times it didn't. My biggest issue is hitting the jump button in time when I come onto a new screen and it has one of those radios (?) that is close to the edge. I always hit it.)

7800 (all times approximate, psp emulated)

Mario Bros. - 5 min (Not sure what's going on with this emulation. It runs fine and controls fine, but the sound is scratchy and bad. May have to look for a new emulator. Anyway, this is still a fun Mario Bros game, but the sound hurts it.)

Asteroids - 5 min (I prefer the 2600 version over this one. This one is quite a bit more challenging with the asteroids going in more random directions and flying around faster.)

Dig Dug - 5 min (I've never been that good at Dig Dug, but I've always liked it. Like the music and gameplay. This seems to be a pretty good version, but has the same sound issues as Mario Bros... gotta be the emulator.)

TurboGrafx-16 (all times approximate, psp emulated)

The Legendary Axe - 15 min (Definitely one of my favorite games for the system. The emulation here is pretty good. Sound may be slightly off, but everything else seems okay.)

R-Type - 5 min (Prefer the real thing with real controllers on this one. Mainly because I can switch auto-fire on and off at will. I didn't play long or get far because I was trying to figure out what my options were.)

Soldier Blade - 10 min (A fun shooter. Auto-fire doesn't matter so much on this one, because you want it on all the time. Pretty easy game for a little bit at least. I think the d-pad on the psp hinders me some, though.)

Volfied - 5 min (Essentially Qix. Haven't played Qix in a long time, so figured I'd download this one. It'll get some more play time in the future, but probably won't ever be a highly played game for me.)

NES (all times approximate, psp emulated)

Castlevania - 10 min (Gotta download this one, right? Just played until my first death. Happened a little bit after killing the mummies. Emulation is pretty good here.)

Dr. Mario - 20 min (Never really played this one much, but it's pretty fun. I played it longer than I figured I would.)

Super Mario Bros. - 5 min (Again, just played a bit to see if it worked. It did.)

GameBoy (all times approximate, psp emulated)

Metroid II Return of Samus - 10 min (For some reason, this won't run on the emulator on my computer. Same rom from the same place, but different emulator. It glitches out on the laptop. Oh well. I played long enough to kill a metroid and get lost. lol)

Super Mario Land - 10 min (Another one I never played much of. Got a little ways into it and moved on. Will play more at some point.)

GameBoy Color (all times approximate, psp emulated)

Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening DX - 15 min (Used to have the original GameBoy version. It was the bugged one, though where you couldn't get past a certain dungeon because a key wouldn't drop or something. Anyway, played this for a little bit. Nice being in color. It's really hard to get it to the save screen on the psp, though... you have to "press all the buttons" meaning A, B, Start, and Select... and it's just a little difficult to get them all to register.)

Genesis (all times approximate, psp emulated)

MUSHA - 5 min (Just played a bit. Fun game with great music.)

Truxton - 5 min (Again, just played a bit. Sound seems a bit off, but still played fine.)

SegaCD (all times approximate, psp emulated)

Snatcher - 25 min (A lot of flirting with Mika. =) Anyway, it's cool that I was able to get SegaCD games working on the PSP, but honestly, there's not a lot of them that I'm interested in playing. Want to get the TG-CD working, but never could figure it out. There's more games on that system I want to play.)

Sylpheed - 5 min (A fun but hard shooter (at least on the PSP). Will try more later.)

Playstation (all times approximate, psp emulated)

Castlevania SotN - 30 min (Such a good game, and it seems to run great on the PSP. It has all the cinematic cutscenes, too, unlike the version I downloaded on the XBox.)

Wipeout XL - 10 min (To this day, this is the only game I ever bought the sound track to. A fun racing game, with fun sequels. A little hard to see on the small screen, so it's sometimes difficult to dodge mines, but I look forward to playing this one more.)

Edited May 27, 2018 by Eltigro

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (May 21st through 27th) on classic systems:

 

Atari 7800:

Baby Pac-Man (WIP) - 18 min.

 

TI-99/4A:

Slymoids - 34 min.

 

VIC-20:

Donkey Kong - 68 min. in 3 sessions

 

I tried the WIP of "Baby Pac-Man" on the Atari 7800 which was posted on an Atariage thread. It still misses the pinball part, but it's off to a good start.

 

On the TI-99, I continued to play "Slymoids", but I started at Level 3 this time and didn't manage to finish it.

 

Then I tried the VIC-20 version of Donkey Kong since I remember I tried to code something similar to that in BASIC (after having done the same on the TI-99), but it didn't nearly as good as the commercial version, which is fast and furious (way faster than the arcade original actually) although the framerate is not that great. You have to careful when jumping because unlike most other versions you can still steer left and right while in the air!

[digdugnate]

I only have the one this week:

 

Atari 2600

 

Berzerk 120 minutes

[Opry99er]

These include both my son's times and my times for Saturday and Sunday. It's been an awesome weekend!

 

 

NES

 

Afterburner (10 minutes)

Baseball Stars (25 minutes)

Blades of Steel (20 minutes)

Kung Fu (15 minutes)

RBI baseball (60 minutes)

Top Gun (20 minutes)

 

 

TI-99/4A

 

Break Free (10 minutes)

Donkey Kong (20 minutes)

Mad Marvin's Great Escape (20 minutes)

Tunnels of Doom (30 minutes)

 

 

VCS

 

Donkey Kong (45 minutes)

Freeway (10 minutes)

Galaxian (25 minutes)

GORF (20 minutes)

Homerun (5 minutes)

Kaboom! (45 minutes)

Ms PAC Man (30 minutes)

Pete Rose Baseball (120 minutes)

Super Breakout (90 minutes)

Survival Run (30 minutes)

 

 

A good weekend, indeed.

 

 

Even managed to get some fishing in.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 259 minutes

Squish 'em - 106 minutes

Hunchy 2 - 129 minutes

Eggomania - 16 minutes

 

 

Kaboom! : 69,889

 

 

[agb]

Times for the week. Both Atari 2600.

Solar Fox 153 mins

Squishem 181 minutes for the HSC. First time playing the game and it became a little addictive after a while. Kind of fun game.

[Iwantgames:)]

Amiga -

It Came From The Desert - 20min

 

C64 -

Creatures 2 - 10min

Rampage - 15min

 

CoCo 1/2 -

Bomb Threat - 15min

 

CoCo3 -

Popstar Pilot - 10min

Rampage - 30min

Timber Man - 10min

 

Odyssey 2(Videopac G7200) -

Astrododge - 20min

Demon Attack - 35min